The commonest operation in the world is responsible for restoring sight to millions of blind and visually disabled people every year.
From humble beginnings in India over 2,000 years ago it was refined by French surgeons in the Enlightenment. Over the last few decades this operation has been transformed from a risky operation almost identical to that performed by Victorian Surgeons, into a sophisticated quick day case procedure with extremely low complications.
The development of new materials by the British aircraft industry was critical to this development and the courageous adoption of pioneering surgeons all over the world, criticised by their peers at the time, has led to the miracle of modern cataract surgery.
Bio
William Ayliffe
As well as being the Gresham Professor of Physic, Professor William Ayliffe is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in the NHS and at the Lister Hospital in London. In addition to being a practicing clinician and teacher, he also continues to carry out clinical research into the prevention of blindness.
After taking a first in Immunology at Imperial College, Professor Ayliffe qualified in Medicine in St. Bartholomew's Hospital London. Specializing in inflammatory eye diseases and corneal and cataract surgery he held a research registrar post at Oxford, before training in clinical ophthalmology in Bristol, Manchester and Harvard USA. His PhD was on mechanisms of corneal transplant failure. He has worked in developing countries and also with ORBIS, the international flying eye hospital. In addition to general ophthalmology, Professor Ayliffe has developed a local and tertiary referral service for cornea, uveitis and inflammatory eye disease.
Professor Ayliffe is a winner of the prestigious Wix Prize for the History of Medicine and the Kabi-Pharmacia Prize for immunological mechanisms of corneal transplant rejection. He is a Reviewer for a number of professional journals including Eye, British Journal of Ophthalmology, Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, he is an Examiner for the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and an Advisor to the UK Transplant Service. He has undertaken wide media and TV work for the national press, the BBC and Channel 4, has an extensive range of publications and has delivered prestigious lectures all over the world.
Opacity of the eye's crystalline lens. Cataracts causing central visual-field defects are most likely to affect vision. Cataracts may occur in newborns and infants. Diabetes mellitus, prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays, or trauma can cause them in adults, but they most often occur with age, resulting from gradual loss of transparency of the lens. Treatment is a surgical procedure to replace the lens with an artificial one.
i'm interested in this talk, but flash kills my computer, so i'm not going to watch an hour of the talk.
i watch the vast majority of my talks on my iphone.
please have a download available.
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